Did this as a project for my video editing class. Mostly edited with Final Cut Pro, but I added the watermark with Adobe Premiere Elements and used Windows Movie Maker to size it down to fit on YouTube… like anyone cares. Taped and edited by your one and only.

* I think I spelled Cheddarbob’s name wrong. Oops. Someone told me it was spelled that way…

I got my first camcorder about two weeks ago, a Canon ZR850. It is a miniDV camcorder instead of a hard drive camera (never ever DVD for me) for two reasons: (1) the price (like a $175+ difference) and (2) the brand.

As of right now, Canon doesnot offer any hard drive cameras, but Sony, JVC, and Panasonic already do. I really like the Canon ZR Series because it is really affordable. With the 2-year replacement warranty, it cost me a little over $360 for the camera. I also purchased some miniDV tapes though ($13 for five tapes — any brand will do), a Belkin firewire cable (to transfer the tape to the computer, camera didn’t come with it — that was $14), and a Samsung camcorder bag (which fits my Olympus camera essentials as well! — got it at Wal-mart for $18).

I first taped me and babe at home doing absolutely nothing, but then taped Prentyce’s championship game with UFB. The video quality was surprisingly good (no HD, but it’ll work since I don’t have an HD television), but I was lucky to have good lighting that day. The zooming worked great (35x?!); there are three zoom speeds you can choose from. I chose the middle one, not too fast or slow. The camcorder was easy to hold, but my hand started cramping up after a while… maybe it was just excitement? The battery that came with the camcorder lasts you about 45-60 minutes, I suggest getting the BP-2L14 battery, (get the original if you can, but the generic ones cost about $30 less) which is said to last about 3 hours but will cost you $55 from Amazon. The menus were easy to understand, I could easily find a lot of stuff, most of which you just set one time and forget. You need an SD card if you want to take still shots. Although they aren’t that good, nice to have! Some reviews said the camera had some sort of “humming”, but I didn’t hear it indoors or out. It was easy to import video, you can use Windows Movie Maker to capture or any type of video editing program. I use Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 (it costs about $80 on Amazon) and Final Cut Pro (this is like $1000, but I use it at school).

I think I don’t have that many complaints because it is my first camcorder, but I think it was a good first choice. I’ll get the more expensive one later when I’m a video editing genius, but since I’m only starting out, I’ll stick with this. Don’t expect great things when you don’t pay a hefty price — especially with electronics! Overall, good camera for the price! I love it.

Look at this crap! It’s bad enough the labels are all white and jacked up, they had someone who was in second first grade writing the words and numbers… they can’t even count. Wal-mart better step their game up, all this child labor is gonna hit the surface one day.

Rush Hour 3 – Not much to say except that it took them way too long to come out with this movie. This is like Chris Tucker’s first movie in 5 years! Dayummm! Jackie Chan still looks good! It’s setting is in Paris, which I think makes it less funnier. Surprisingly, it looks like there’s still a lot of Asians in Paris. I don’t think it’ll be as funny as the previous titles, but we’ll see.

Balls of Fury – This movie looks really (stupid) funny. Made by the creators of Reno 911 so expect that type of humor. The main character is not very popular at all, but seems really funny — kind of Jack Blackish.

Surf’s Up – What can I say besides that it’s another dang penguin movie. This time, it’s about a surfing penguin named Cody Maverick, who’s smaller than his competitors (Happy Feet = weirdo penguin that can’t sing like everyone else? Hmmm..,). I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had my share of penguin movies in the past year… so I doubt I’m gonna see this.

Evan Almighty – Man, I think this is gonna be hilarious. Steve Carell (think 40 Year Old Virgin) plays Evan Baxter, aka Weirdo with a Beardo. He’s approached by God (a black one, nothing is wrong with that — thought he was Middle Eastern) to build an arc. Watch the trailer.

Finally received my first ThankYou member reward a couple of days ago! It only took 3 weeks to get here even though customer service told me it would take 6-8 weeks (felt like rebate status for a minute). Anyways… I got the Target $100 Gift Card, with a cute lil doggy sitting in a car on it. It took 10,000 ThankYou points to get that! When I used it at Target today, I only got one thing because I was afraid of getting bamboozled at the counter (maybe the card wouldn’t work? who knows, these things happen!). It was a Target brand (ghetto) bottle of Tylenol ‘cos this one heffer I love is giving me a major headache.

The point system is really easy to break down. I don’t understand why people would ever retrieve their ThankYou points for merchandise on the site. The isht doesn’t add up and you would be wasting money when you can get it cheaper somewhere else. Might as well get you a gift card! There are even gas cards, but they don’t have one for Chevron so I got Target instead.

For senior year, I made a photo slideshow to show during the senior assembly… it was a great success. Some people were mad they didn’t get in the video, but I didn’t care. We had an announcement every morning over the intercom to turn in pictures/email pictures and only two people did… was I suppose to force you to give me pics? It wasn’t my fault your ass didn’t pay attention to the dang announcement. And, then they would say dumb stuff like, “You and your friends are the only ones in the slideshow.” and then I would say “Well me and my friends is all I have pictures of bia!” Anyways… I had to put it in 3 parts to fit on YouTube (10 min max, it’s a 23 min video). Nonetheless, time to reminisce.